[news] Beats by Dre purchased by Apple

[featured_spectre]

What Apple is really buying with Beats | The Verge

 

All I can think of is this - "This isn't even my final price!"

[SYNACK]

It is a perfect merger, two companies that make their fortunes by selling over priced junk to people who don't know any better

[sparkeh]

A $200 pair of Beats Headphones is said to cost the manufacturer as little as $14

Wait while I pick my jaw up from the floor...

[synaesthesia]

It is a perfect merger, two companies that make their fortunes by selling over priced junk to people who don't know any better

 

Exactly this. Tat for tat.

[LosOjos]

It is a perfect merger, two companies that make their fortunes by selling over priced junk to people who don't know any better

 

Nail. On. Head.

 

As I said to @SYSMAN_MK on twitter the other day, I have a £30 pair of Soundmagic E10s (in-ear headphones) and they absolutely wipe the floor with the Beats in-ears that cost literally four times as much.

Edited May 13, 2014 by LosOjos

[Andrew_C]

It is a perfect merger, two companies that make their fortunes by selling over priced junk to people who don't know any better

Funny, that's almost word for word what I was going to write!

[Arthur]

Considering the acquisition hasn't been confirmed by Apple, I am surprised how many websites are treating it as a done deal.

 

That said, Dr Dre has good taste in headphones. I have some ATH-M50's myself.

 

[Dos_Box]

The BBC had an interesting article about the attraction of Beats headphones last week. My favorite bits are:

 

They are lightweight and easy to wear. One of the company's founders - legendary hip hop producer Dr Dre - imbues them with automatic street cred. But the image comes at a price - a wireless pair is £250. The full collection on Beats' website ranges from £170 to £390. They have a bass-heavy sound popular with fans of RnB and hip hop.

"But the real audio cognoscenti wouldn't touch them with a barge pole," says technology blogger Tom Cheesewright. "Ultimately they're a fashion brand."

 

And

 

Apple has always had a problem with sound quality, says Jonathan Margolis, technology expert for the Financial Times. And yet Beats is a surprising choice. "Beats is a brilliant marketing trick," he says. You can buy better quality sound for £100 less, he argues. To traditional Apple fans, "Bose and Harmon Kardon would have been far less off-putting".

 

It had puzzled my why Apple always bundled such awful headphones with their devices especially given the huge mark-up they have it wouldn't have cost much to have included even half decent headphones.

[SYNACK]

It had puzzled my why Apple always bundled such awful headphones with their devices especially given the huge mark-up they have it wouldn't have cost much to have included even half decent headphones.

 

Because then it would show up the terrible DSPs they use, or at least used to. I remember reading a blog ages ago that rated iPods against other MP3 players using an oscilscope and waveform for waveform the iPod was the worst at reproducing sound of the lot. I don't know if it has changed but I doubt it. I would wager that the sound output on my Nokia 'camera focused' phone would beat the pants off the equivalent iPod or iPhone just because of how little they used to care about sound quality.

Edited May 13, 2014 by SYNACK

[nicholab]

Beats are over priced I rather get beyerdynamic DT150's. Edited May 13, 2014 by nicholab

[Garacesh]

I was given a pair of Apple headphones from work (we bought iPods for the PE staff to be able to take registers on, but they didn't use the headphones at all) and they were certainly superior quality to the htc hands-free kit I was using at the time (a little louder, but definitely clearer). They're nothing special, the old Turtlebeach headset I used to use was certainly better , but I wouldn't really consider them to be bad. Then again, I only use them 'casually', as music to-and-from work.

 

Then again, maybe it's more to do with the device (I have a Sandisk/Sansa Clip for an MP3 player) than the headphones?

 

Either way, the BBC article also mentioned an interesting point: Ethnic targeting.

That could be deliberate, he concedes. Ride the New York subway and it seems nearly every black and Hispanic male is wearing Beats or imitations. Apple will reach a new demographic other than its white, hipster, arty, media crowd.

[SYNACK]

Either way, the BBC article also mentioned an interesting point: Ethnic targeting.

 

Oh dear, rap product placement... pass me my iBeats and my 9...

[LosOjos]

Then again, maybe it's more to do with the device (I have a Sandisk/Sansa Clip for an MP3 player) than the headphones?

 

Six of one, half dozen of the other... a device with a high quality DAC will sound better than one with a cheap one (most portable devices have to make some compromise here due to size limitations), but you won't hear the difference unless you have a decent pair of headphones that have wide range and are well balanced. Basically, there's no point in using £500 headphones on a cheapo MP# player, but equally there's no point buying a £10k sound system then plugging in a pair of headphones you got free with an MP# player...

[Garacesh]

Oh dear, rap product placement... pass me my iBeats and my 9...

 

Have you not heard the song "Big Mac Attack"? (Warning: NSFW unless you've got a very laid back boss)

Edit: Wrong link. Not going to hunt immensely for it (just took the first one available) - I'm sure you'll find it if you go looking for it

[Arthur]

Then again, maybe it's more to do with the device (I have a Sandisk/Sansa Clip for an MP3 player) than the headphones?

 

nwavguy.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/sansa-clip-measured.html

 

As stated near the beginning of this review the Clip+ turned in excellent performance for just about any portable player, let alone a really tiny one under $40. While the iPod has the performance advantage in several areas I'm not sure any of them will result in audibly better sound quality. I am, however, fairly confident the lower output impedance and higher low distortion output power of the Clip+ are an audible advantage over the iPod with many headphones--especially balanced armature types such as most of the Etymotic IEMs, Shure IEMs, Ultimate Ear IEM's etc. These all tend to have wider impedance swings which, combined with the iPod's roughly 7 ohm output impedance, will create audible frequency response variations compared to the Clip+ (see the earlier graph). The flip side of this is some might actually prefer the "less flat" frequency response they get with the iPod. And some argue certain headphone makers "voice" their affordable portable products for use with iPods.

[Garacesh]

Yes.

 

I know some of those words.

[casey]

I've got a Sandisk/ Sansa Fuze and I had the chance to compare it directly to an iPod 'classic' 80Gb, and to me the Sandisk sounded much better.

 

Recently bought a pair of Sennheiser Momentum on ears and had an experience I've heard about but never experienced, the "wow I've never heard that before in that song".

Before I bought them I tried some Bose OE2's and B&W P3's, the Sennheisers sounded so much better to me, but sometimes I think the overall 'sound' of a particular brand just appeals to different people.

 

On the other hand, the only Apple product I own is an iPad Air and for my particular use case I think it's brilliant and wouldn't swap it for anything else. (I had a Sony Tablet S before that, which was pretty good but not a patch on the iPad IMHO)

[abillybob]

I don't think they will end up releasing beats as iPhone accessories for iPhones and the like, I think you'll find they are more likely to brand their hardware with the beats logo a bit like the HTC One did. I do have to say the sound quality is no different though my brother has the HTC One with Beats Audio and I have a Note 3, they sound exactly the same, it's the hardware and speaker that is meant to be beats branded not the headphones it comes with.

The iPod and the like are terrible for sound quality, all my friends in school had the latest iPods but after around 2 months of research I settled on the Cowon S9 and I have never heard better sound quality from a device than that was in all my years, it was a brilliant bit of kit nothing I have heard matches up to that!

 

Once again it's a marketing technique from Apple persuading the younger "hipster" market to buy into their brand by shoving Dr Dre Beats Audio on the back of their devices it's all a gimmick and if the idiots that buy these devices do so because of the branding IMO they're idiots.

[synaesthesia]

[Andrew_C]

I'd buy that (not the MePod)

[Little-Miss]

BEATS DON'T EVEN SOUND GOOD! YOU LOSE HALF THE MUSIC!!!

 

They make me irrationally angry. Musicians every where must weep if they hear their music through them!

[LosOjos]

BEATS DON'T EVEN SOUND GOOD! YOU LOSE HALF THE MUSIC!!!

 

They make me irrationally angry. Musicians every where must weep if they hear their music through them!

 

They're the headphone equivalent of a 1000w subwoofer in the boot of a Ford Fiesta...

[sparkeh]

They're the headphone equivalent of a 1000w subwoofer in the boot of a Ford Fiesta...

Now you've made me want them!

[Garacesh]

They're the headphone equivalent of a 1000w subwoofer in the boot of a Ford Fiesta...

But.. But.. How else will everyone else know I listen to bangin' choons?

 

BUMF BUMF BUMF BUMF BUMF BUMF BUMF BUMF

[Guest Guest]

BEATS DON'T EVEN SOUND GOOD! YOU LOSE HALF THE MUSIC!!!

 

Technically you lose half of the remaining music, the first half has already been lost by buying an mp3.

 

Can we please bring back quality audio formats and quality hardware brands? But then that would just show up the complete lack of effort that goes into mastering now - squash it until it sounds ok on a £5 mp3 player at 128kb, then squash it some more for good measure.